25th December 1665 saw the birthof songwriter a nd poet Lady Grizell Baillie.
Lady Grizel, also spelled Grisel at times, was born at Redbraes Castle in Berwickshire, the eldest daughter of Covenanter Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth. At age 12, she smuggled letters from her father to the imprisoned patriot Robert Baillie of Jerviswood. Sir Hume publicly defended Baillie, and after Baillie’s execution, Sir Hume’s castle was confiscated, forcing Sir Hume into hiding in a vault beneath Polwarth Church in Edinburgh. The family later fled to Holland, finally returning to Scotland to participate in the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688. In 1692, Grizel Hume married Robert Baillie’s son George, and in 1696, Sir Hume was made Lord Chancellor of Scotland.
Lady Grizel’s verses bear mournful witness to suffering. Only two of Lady Grizel’s songs survive: “The ewe-butchin’s bonnie,” which may have been inspired by her father’s ordeal, and “Werena my Heart’s licht I wad dee,” which appeared in the Scottish folk song collection Orpheus Caledonius (1725) and in volume 4 of Tea Table Miscellany (1724-37).
The Household Book of Lady Grisell Baillie 1692-1733 (1911) offers a detailed portrait of domestic expenditures and daily life at a Scottish country house. Lady Grizel Baillie is buried on the grounds of Mellerstain House, her home in the final decades of her life. The handheld wooden lantern the young Lady Grizel took on nightly visits to her father is now in the collections of the National Museums of Scotland.
Werena My Heart Licht I Wad Dee
There was ance a may, and she lo’ed na men;
She biggit her bonnie bow’r doun i’ yon glen;
But now she cries, Dool and a well-a-day!
Come doun the green gait and come here away!
When bonnie young Johnnie cam’ owre the sea
He said he saw naething sae lovely as me;
He hecht me baith rings and monie braw things;
And werena my heart licht, I wad dee.
He had a wee tittie that lo’ed na me,
Because I was twice as bonnie as she;
She raised sic a pother ‘twixt him and his mother,
That werena my heart licht, I wad dee.
The day it was set, and the bridal to be
The wife took a dwam and lay doun to dee;
She maned, and she graned, out o’ dolour and pain,
Till he vowed that he ne’er wad see me again.
His kin was for ane o’ a higher degree,
Said, what had he do wi’ the likes o’ me?
Albeit I was bonnie, I wasna for Johnnie:
And werena my heart licht, I wad dee.
They said I had neither cow nor calf,
Nor dribbles o’ drink rins through the draff,
Nor pickles o’meal rins through the mill-e’e;
An werena my heart licht, I wad dee.
His tittie she was baith wily and slee,
She spied me as I cam’ owre the lea,
And then she ran in and made a loud din;
Believe your ain een an ye trow na me.
His bannet stood aye fu’ round on his brow
His auld ane looked aye as weel as some’s new;
But now he lets ’t wear ony gate it will hing,
And casts himsel’ dowie upon the corn-bing.
And now he gaes daund’ring about the dykes
A a’ he dow do is to hund the tykes;
The love-lang nicht he ne’er steeks his e’e;
And werena my heart licht I wad dee.
Were I but young for thee, as I ha’e been
We should ha’e been gallopin’ doun in yon green,
And linkin’ it on the lily-white lea;
And wow, gin I were but young for thee.
